Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/58

 there is not one canon of either Eastern or Western, Greek or Syrian, Roman or African Council on the subject. The nearest is that of Neo-Cæsarea, in Pontus, about nine years later (314). But, strange to say, that speaks only of a woman marrying two brothers; and at that time there is no trace of the inference from brother's wife to wife's sister. But that neither of these Councils, nor both together, exhibit the practice or mind of the Catholic Church at this period is certain from the fact that both are hostile to the marriage of the clergy: the Council of Eliberis absolutely forbidding it, and that of Neo-Cæsarea degrading a clergyman who married after ordination. But when similar propositions were made at the first General Council of Nice in 325, the bishops, assembled from various parts of the empire, showed, by rejecting them, that these Councils had not spoken the mind of the universal Church. Even fifty years later, when St. Basil wrote his famous letter, and when the Emperor Constantius had already prohibited such marriages, that Father was not able to speak of the practice of the universal Church as being opposed to them. Dr. Pusey seems to think that the language of that letter is sufficient to prove "an universal hereditary practice to forbid the marriage with the sister of the deceased wife." But any unprejudiced person looking at the words, as translated by Dr. Pusey at the end of his "Letter," or in the "Statement" of the Rev. W. Palmer, will interpret them simply of the custom of his own diocese. According to the former version, the words are, "First of all we allege that which is of the greatest weight in such matters, the custom established among us, which is equivalent to a law, inasmuch as such ordinances have been handed down to us by holy men." According to Mr. Palmer's statement, "The first argument (and it is the strongest of all in